Conventionally, a driving support system that detects objects such as pedestrians and other vehicles around an own vehicle using a camera or radar, and provides driving support such as warning about a collision with objects, intervening in a driving operation in order to avoid the collision, etc. are known.
As an example of such a device, a driving support system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-8281 detects white lines of a road ahead of an own vehicle by a camera, and detects stationary objects on a lane on which the own vehicle is traveling by radar.
Then, when the stationary objects are detected, a driving support for avoiding a collision with stationary objects is provided by setting a virtual white line so as to avoid the stationary objects and performing a lane maintenance control or a lane departure warning using the virtual white line.
In the driving support system described above, the driving support starts when the positional relationship or the like between the own vehicle and the object meets certain conditions.
However, there is a case where the objects by the road or off the road such as guardrails, etc. are positioned ahead of the own vehicle in a curve entrance and exit, for example, and in such a case, it may be determined incorrectly that a probability of the vehicle that will collide with the objects is high, and there is a possibility that the driving support activates needlessly.
In order to avoid such a needless activation, a threshold at a start condition of the driving support has been adjusted so that the driving support is less likely to be started in the driving support system described above.
However, there is sometimes a problem that the start condition is difficult to satisfy even in a case where other vehicles or pedestrians are present on the lane on which the own vehicle is traveling, thus the start of the driving support will be delayed.